A Gingerbread Nightmare
by Froody
Summary: In which Howard destroys the fine art of baking, blatantly misinterprets Vince's festive intentions, and ultimately lodges his foot in his mouth - with fluffy results. Features Vince's own Gingerbread Castle!
1. Chapter 1

_'Twas the night before Christmas_

_And out by the stairs,_

_A jazz maverick was waiting_

_For a Mowgli in flares._

* * *

"No, give me the bananas, Bollo. Come on. Fine then, don't, just get out of the kitchen before your fur starts matting with the flour. No, give me the flour – oh, sod it."

Howard's shoulders slumped. The sudden movement puffed a small white cloud of flour about his head. It was quite fitting, really. The northerner had been labouring under considerable storm clouds for some time now. The purpling sky outside was bereft of sunlight; snow would be arriving shortly.

Yes, quite fitting for Christmas.

Where was Vince, anyway? He never missed a day of baking, no sir – not the Electro Mixer. Pancakes, soup, whatever the recipe, Vince was always there.

And he had promised. And yet, as Howard struggled to breathe through the heady mix of flour and various spices hanging about the air, his beady eyes fixed on the electric beater lying abandoned on a nearby counter.

Should've expected it, really. Vince didn't exactly show much interest in hanging about the flat with Howard anymore. It wasn't like old times. Howard didn't even bother buying satsumas at the market anymore.

Howard glared after Bollo, and waved his oven mitts through the air with considerable ire.

"Twit," he muttered, turning back to the lumpy muck that should have been a firm mound of dough. "Now, the construction of a house from this mess. Possible? Yes sir. This man of action works alone."

Peering over the red, green and yellow towers of Sweet City, Howard shook his head in despair and his oven mitts off his hands. To tell the truth (though he never would) Howard had no idea how to go about building a gingerbread house. After all, he'd never done it alone. Vince always brought out a large technicolour drawing of where each of the walls was to be situated, misspelt instructions appearing in little speech bubbles from the mouth of a Plan Pony.

Howard shook his head in abject despair. What he wouldn't give for Vince to be poncing about behind him as usual, all frilly in some neon pink apron, one hand in the dough and one hand working on the erosion of Sweet City. What he wouldn't give for even a Plan Pony…

The claggy dough sprawled threateningly across the kitchen bench top. Even with a rolling pin in hand, Howard didn't want to touch it. Quite frankly, it looked rather evil – and not just to taste. He hadn't been able to remember how much cardamom was supposed to go in. Just in case, he'd made up for inadequate spices by dumping thrice the amount of honey in the saucepan. Well, at least Vince would have to approve of the extra sweetener – although Howard had tried to balance the saccharine taste by adding a cup of salt…

Thrusting his hands in the air (and rather missing the extra dramatics conveyed through his mitts) Howard gave up. He gave up. Vince wasn't here, and Howard had given up. Well, that wasn't really a new state of affairs, now, was it?

Ever since Howard and Vince had started working down in the Nabootique beneath the flat, their relationship had been wilfully antagonistic at best. Howard would brandish a diamond of a jazz record under Vince's nose, and Vince would descend to new depths of ridicule. And then leave the shop. Howard couldn't even tell himself that Vince was avoiding his jazz allergies; all records in the Nabootique were firmly enclosed in individual plastic pouches, yes sir.

No; Vince was avoiding Howard. That was clear enough. Vince was setting aside his old zoo buddy, his old school buddy, his best mate and crimping partner, for a whole new exciting scene.

And Howard was giving up. Every time Vince left the shop, every time Howard didn't say anything, he was giving up.

Howard decided that enough was enough. He was a jazz maverick, a genre spanner. Howard Moon, colon, explorer. There was nothing in his personal description to suggest culinary prowess (though Howard would never admit to any deficiency in this field). However, he could tell himself that he still held some sway over Vince through the bonds of their long-term friendship.

With one last defiant punch to the mound of greyish dough, Howard left the kitchen and settled himself on the couch by the stairs. He would sit there until Vince waltzed back in, and attempt to resurrect their friendship. Through angry and bitter confrontation.

With his little finger, Howard worked at removing flour from the corners of his eyes.

Two hours later, the door banged open in the shop below.

Howard jerked awake mid-snore. He squealed in alarm before suddenly realising that his pinkie still rested within his left eye.

"Howard? Is that you?"

Howard leapt to his feet at the sound of Vince's familiar voice, and brushed at himself nervously. He frowned as an inordinate amount of flour puffed from his muffin skivvy. He hoped that his moustache hadn't gone completely white. What would Lester Corncrake say at that?

"Alright, Howard?" Vince asked brightly as he clambered up the last stairs, a giant shopping bag hanging from his arm. Howard blinked for a moment, momentarily stunned by the palette of metallic colours screaming from Vince's outfit. Trying to recover from the visual overload, he focussed on the quietest piece of the costume – Vince's favourite festive boots. The crimson leather clashed brilliantly with the green baubles that bobbled from the laces.

"No," he said finally, his tone extremely short. "I am not alright. I am not even quasi-right. And neither is the gingerbread house."

Vince stepped closer, the green baubles dancing merrily on his boots. "Hey, cheer up, Howard, I slapped one together before I went out."

Howard's moustache twitched. His arm ached desperately for a Chinese burn. His eyes ached from flour build-up. "You what?"

"Yeah, me and the Plan Pony put some good hours in while you were out at your Jazzercise class this afternoon. You should see it, Howard, it's dynamite!" Vince held up a gloved finger, and Howard watched, silent, as green baubles swung merrily from his wrist. Wide blue eyes sprung wider with excitement, Vince dashed off into the bathroom (of all places) and came back panting.

Howard's tiny eyes widened to the size of bronze pennies.

On a grand silver platter that Howard didn't recognise stood a glorious fairytale castle, icing piped along walls in delicate artistry, multi-coloured skulls lining the gingerbread carapace. Sprouting out before a chocolate-coated portcullis was a magnificent gingerbread drawbridge. As Howard watched, mouth open, Vince reached out and tugged on a small liquorice lever. The drawbridge lowered smoothly, strung from a pair of raspberry bootlaces.

"It's well genius," said Vince proudly, a smile stretched across his cheeky face. "I drank a jug of eggnog before making it, I was blazing!"

Howard cleared his throat. "Are – are they turrets?" he asked weakly, prodding a finger towards the gingerbread castle.

"What's a castle without turrets?"

"I– "

For a long moment, Howard had absolutely no idea how to respond. He stared down at the castle built by Vince and the Plan Pony. He thought of the lump of doughy muck awaiting him in the shadows of the kitchen.

Vince had left him to attempt a gingerbread house alone. Howard had given up.

"How could you?" Howard whispered, eyes narrowing into floury creases.

Vince looked startled. He held up his hands nervously and took a step backwards, almost tangling himself up in swinging baubles. "What?"

"How could you do this to me?"

"What?" Vince repeated, his mouth curling into its all-too-familiar sneer. "Howard, I think all that jazz has finally sent you wrong."

"You left me here in the flat all alone on Christmas Eve. You left me to make a gingerbread house by myself." Howard paused, steaming and red, almost as toasty in appearance as he had become far off in the desert of Xooberon. "We _always_ make that gingerbread house together, Vince, you and me, and you broke that tradition, sir. It doesn't matter how many turrets your fancy castle sports about town; our little square hut was just fine when we made it together."

All of a sudden, Howard's memory fixed upon the small zookeeper's hut that he had shared with Vince for years in the Zooniverse. Without warning, his eyes misted over and his vision disappeared in a cloudy soup of flour paste.

"Howard?"

Despite himself, Howard blinked at the new, unexpected note of timidity in Vince's voice.

"I didn't mean to – well, I just didn't think –"

"You never think, little man," Howard sighed, turning away to hide the wet floury splodges discolouring his muffin skivvy. "That single brain cell of yours is entirely pre-occupied with one person, and that person is not Howard Moon." He paused. "Believe me. I've been inside your mind."

Expecting an acerbic comeback, Howard prepared his regular defensive line. If Vince cut into him, he would come at the electro fairy like a buzzard, like a cylinder –

A small hand slid gently onto the whitened sleeve of Howard's skivvy, unusual in its silent tentativeness. Without even thinking about it, Howard shrugged away from Vince's touch, and he didn't even need to say the words.

_Don't touch me. Don't ever touch me_.

"Whatever."

Howard flinched at the sharp antipathy in Vince's voice, and hunched his shoulders further into himself as crimson boots stomped away from the living room. Gazing about the room to distract his eyes from other activities, Howard found the gingerbread castle. On the floor. Turrets smashed to tasty smithereens, drawbridge dangling from a single rope of raspberry bootlace.

Well, there it was. The definitive end to the fairytale friendship.

Just in time for Christmas.

* * *

**A/N: Part 1 of 2. Fluff peeps through the heavy clouds of angst... **

**I love reviews like Vince loves Howard. So please REVIEW.**

**xx Froody**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I was ridiculously pleased to get the word 'morn' in the opening line. :) Love Boosh Live.**

* * *

_'Twas the morn after Christmas,_

_And all through the flat_

_Came the sound of Vince shouting_

_At some 'northern twat'._

* * *

"I was home, alright, I got home at eleven, still Christmas at eleven at night, isn't it?"

"And what did you do then, Vince? You walked through the door, poured the Head Shaman a shot of Baileys, and ran off thirty seconds later for the midnight opening of Topshop's Boxing Day sales!"

The memory of the sickly sweet smell of Baileys hung in Howard's mind for a moment too long, and he shuddered softly. Never again. Never again in the house. A crude watercolour sprung to mind, pitching wildly into focus. The nausea was coming on. He'd had more than enough of the Baileys times.

"How was I supposed to know Dennis can't hold his liquor? He was off his tits in seconds!"

"You left him the bottle, you little twitbox! I've spent the whole morning scrubbing at these stains –"

"Oh, cool your boots," Vince huffed, turning his blue eyes to the ceiling. "That's how it is, Howard. I mess it up, you clean it."

Howard sighed. He hadn't intended to flare into temper – at least, not immediately. He'd planned to reveal his anger and disappointment in stages, thus provoking a logical and ordered burn of guilt in Vince's simple mind.

But it wasn't to be.

What with the scrubbing and the Baileys, the sordid memories of the Shaman Christmas party burned fiercely into his mind, and the triumphant click of Vince's brand new boots on the newly stained stairs, all of his careful plans had gone to Monkey Hell.

"Come on, Howard," said Vince, and he was quieter now. Howard followed the reasonable tone to its visual conclusion and fell into bucket-loads of earnest blue irises. He shook himself, clinging to his anger in the fists clenched by his sides.

Vince sighed. "I go to the Topshop sales every year, you know that. I'm like their Boxing Day mascot. If I wasn't clinging to the doorframe in the moments before midnight like a neon 'open' sign, they'd probably go bust."

Howard couldn't help himself. The whine reared up in his throat like a fresh wave of scat in a jazz trance. "You left me alone, Vince. On Christmas. You were out having it large with your shiny Camden dollybirds all day, and you only came home to destroy the small peace I'd scrounged up for myself. You didn't even open presents."

"Presents!" Vince squeaked before visibly controlling himself. "Well, look, Howard, if it makes you feel better, why don't we do the presents now, yeah?"

Oh yes, of course. Vince obviously regretted his failure to stick around for that particular Christmas tradition. Oddly enough, Howard's fists did not much unclench at this piece of information.

"Alright," he eased through his teeth, moustache twitching with withheld anger. "Me first, Vince. Where's my present, then?"

Vince's face fell somewhat. Glitter sparkled off his eyelids as he ducked his gaze, digging the metallic toe of a Chelsea boot into the floor. "Erm, well, you see, Howard, that gingerbread castle yesterday was kind of meant to be your present, but it took a short detour to hell after our spat. So, yeah, there wasn't much time to make a proper go of another…"

"Right," said Howard, turning his back on Vince. His shoulders had drooped slightly, but they began to tighten with bitterness, giving him something of a hunch. "I thought as much."

"What, are you still sore about the gingerbread affair?" Vince cried at the hunch, voice high with disbelief. "I saved you effort, Howard, tried to do something nice, and you went mad!"

"Shut your mouth," Howard growled, beginning to take tense little steps away from his erstwhile friend and gingerbread baker. "It's not about the gingerbread, sonny Jim." It was, at least a bit, but Howard wasn't going to admit it. "I'm not good enough to keep you company anymore, that's what this is. We don't bake, we don't crimp, we barely bicker, and you once again neglected to get me a proper present for Christmas. I've had enough, sir. You should get yourself back to Topshop before they miss their mother-licking mascot."

All was silence from behind Howard's hunched back, and he sped up his jerky little steps until his bedroom door was safely slammed shut. He closed his eyes, leaning against the hard wooden panels of the door. He'd known it. Topshop would win over Howard any day of the week in Vince's dazzling day-planner. Christmas was merely confirmation.

And what to do now? Nobody liked him in this place, anyway. He was an unattractive nuisance to Naboo, kept only for his stock-taking efforts in the Nabootique. Bollo only put up with Vince's freakish friend because Vince was a precious flower whose whims were to be encouraged and nurtured. And Vince himself, well, Howard had just seen the extent of Vince's regard for him.

But even faced with all the blatant animosity, Howard knew he couldn't leave the shop. He was the mayor of Stationery Village, for one thing; he had responsibilities to the township that couldn't be lightly abandoned. And it would be so difficult to safely move all of his fragile jazz records. And, well, Howard wasn't the one who packed up and left, was he? Well, unless danger reared its ugly peppermint head, in which situation the jazz maverick was no fool. No; Vince was the one who abandoned Howard, not the other way around.

It was a useless, futile situation, yes sir, and Howard had pressed his palms against his eyes before he could remember that he'd spent the morning scrubbing Baileys out of furniture.

Groaning in disgust, Howard flung his hands away from his face and blinked his eyes open into the dreary December light. He wandered his eyes wearily over the angry beige of his wallpaper, the violent cream of his bedsheets 'neath a funky tartan blanket.

Hold on.

His eyes zoomed back to the head of his bed where, upon his pillow, lay a poorly-wrapped parcel of blinding colour. The silver wrapping paper threw a volley of rainbow colours shimmering across the beige walls. Howard blinked. Twice. He felt a headache coming on.

What was this, then? It looked like something – and his stomach gave a lurch – something Vince would produce in a dramatic flurry of glitter and paste.

With a renewed spurt of energy, Howard marched across the floor, kicking aside a lumpy pile of trumpet socks, and picked up the silver package. It felt heavy. It felt like a Christmas present, all paper angles and obscene wrapping cheer. It didn't feel like a gingerbread castle, nor the crumbling remnants of a gingerbread castle.

It felt like a book, of all things.

Undue surprise twinged at Howard as his eyes caught upon the enormous tag attached to the face of the present.

_**Merry **__**Krissmas, **__**Howard! **__**Sorry **__**about **__**the **__**gingerbred **__**mess**__**. We'll **__**build **__**a **__**gingerbred **__**city **__**next **__**year, **__**yeah? **_

_**Love Vince**_

Due guilt suddenly slammed into Howard's stomach with all the force of falling bison. Oh dear. The physical evidence seemed to rather irrevocably suggest that the shiny parcel in his hands was, indeed, a Christmas present. He had shoved his foot deep down his gullet again, hadn't he?

He stood quite still, staring at the colourful scrawl on the tag for a moment. Obviously, Vince was owed an apology – a rather unexpected occurrence. Howard Moon wasn't one to shirk his social duties, no sir. But – and here came the insistent clench of curiosity – surely a little shifty first couldn't hurt, eh?

Quickly, before his conscience could bark too many reprimands, Howard tore into the package eagerly. To tell the truth, a book was probably a better choice of present than a gingerbread house – Howard's stomach wasn't too inclined to nutrition of the sweet variety. And what book was this? An inspiring anthology of existential cream poetry? A tome of great philosophical weight?

A heavy square mass of pink and sequins fell into Howard's waiting hands, and he blinked once at the sudden glare of déjà vu. Vince had shown him a book like this before. It had been a scrapbook – pictures of Vince's favourite punks. A wave of something like disappointment rolled through Howard as he tried to imagine what Vince could have compiled for him in some misguided creative frenzy. Maybe it was Vince's version of 'the best of early jazz' – pictures of Ella Fitzgerald in the 80s. Maybe it was a series of memoirs from Lester Corncrake.

Sighing softly, Howard pulled open the cover and stopped, shocked. A mocha stain. Not on the page, Vince would never drink coffee so dark. No, a mocha stain beneath a familiar lofty brow…

And he turned the page, and paused again. Again, two Zooniverse uniforms. Again, the mocha stain. And there was another face propped slightly lower in the photograph, two blue eyes and pointed features beneath a cheeky fringe and a feathered haircut.

And he turned the next page, and another, and another, and Howard realised that he was holding something of a photo album in his hands, a photo album of him and Vince through the weird and wonderful ages of their friendship. And beneath every lopsided photograph, a little caption misspelt in an untidy hand:

_**Minky **__**Monthly **__**wants **__**there **__**audience **__**back, **__**you **__**furry **__**twit.**_

_**Us **__**as **__**Goths, **__**AKA **__**the **__**death **__**of **__**my **__**faverite **__**trousers.**_

_**Can **__**you **__**see **__**the **__**captain **__**in the **__**backgrond? **__**His **__**mullet **__**is **__**genius.**_

And there, beneath the last picture, three words. Howard swallowed with some difficulty. He found it considerably embarrassing to imagine that someone had actually managed to take this picture. He didn't know how he felt about the fact that Vince had included it in the scrapbook. He didn't know how to read the three little words scrawled beneath.

_**My**__** faverite **__**memory.**_

Howard swallowed again, and choked as he heard his bedroom door creak open. The choke became a cough as his entire face blazed red. It was clear which page, which photograph, he had paused on. Vince's eyes swept across the open face of the scrapbook, and a tinge of crimson touched lightly in his cheeks.

"Yeah, it's not a proper present, really, is it?" he said after a moment, a doleful note in his voice. "Barely had time to attach the sequins. And I was going to place it in the courtyard of the gingerbread castle like the Plan Pony suggested, but it smashed on the floor."

Howard nodded dumbly. Then he shook his head. "No, no, Vince, it's – well, it's great," he ended lamely, gesturing uselessly at the scrapbook balanced on the crook of his arm. "It must have taken ages to glue all the photos in, and it's got quite enough sequins for me, never mind that."

A small smile curled across Vince's face. "So you like it, then?"

"Yeah, of course I do," Howard muttered gruffly, stepping away from his bed with awkwardness clear in his gait. "In fact, erm, I suppose I have to apologise for behaving like a right plum back in there."

"Yeah, you do," Vince said breezily, "but I don't really want to hear it, so don't bother."

"Right, well, about all the things I was saying," Howard said quickly, "I mean, I suppose Topshop needs you and all, but I still missed you at Christmas, and the whole gingerbread catastrophe was, well –"

"I know," Vince mumbled to his metallic boots. "I've been behaving like a tit, I know that. That's what the scrapbook's for, really," he said, looking uncharacteristically shamed. "It wasn't originally going to be a present; I've been making it in between gigs at the Velvet Onion for ages. And when I was making it, well, I remembered what I want my New Year's resolution to be, and Naboo said that sometimes a visual representation can help, and I thought this might help me, well, get it all out in the open without my thoughts getting all muddled on their path from my brain to my mouth-"

Howard decided that the time had come to interrupt Vince's babbling. "Early for a New Year's resolution, isn't it?" he said kindly, sliding the scrapbook to rest against his chest as he stepped forward.

Vince ignored this. Calendar dates had never really mattered to him. "Sorry, I couldn't think how to phrase this in fashion terms," he said softly, glancing up at Howard. "But I guess what I'm trying to say is that this photo, here-" he pulled the book towards him and pointed at the open page "-is what I want us to be like in the new year. And anyway, I've basically had enough of gingerbread. It's not sweet enough, really."

Howard shook his head, trying to rewind through Vince's words. He stopped, dizzy, and prodded one finger down to the picture lying before him. "You want us to live on the roof? But won't it be cold?"

"No," Vince said brightly, finally back on track, comfortable in the familiar role of teasing Howard. "I want to spend the year kissing you, you jazzy freak."

Howard's eyes nearly popped from his head, and he clutched the scrapbook tighter to him, like a pink and sequinned shield. "Kiss- kissing _me_?"

"Only you," Vince said softly, and his large blue eyes were suddenly much nearer, and small hands were loosening the scrapbook from Howard's fingers, and before the jazz maverick could utter a terrified squeak, soft, wonderful lips had descended on his.

Howard's eyes slammed closed, and he patted his hands nervously against the faux fur lining Vince's new coat. To tell the truth, he couldn't really seem to remember what his eyes or hands should logically be doing, or where they attached to his body; his entire mind was focussed on the heated sensation of moving lips and slender hands stroking across his cheeks.

When the lips moved away, and the soft hands withdrew, Howard released a long gush of air and then froze, utterly at a loss.

"Um, Howard?" Vince asked softly, a smile bright in his voice.

"Ye- yes?"

"Can you release my hair, please? Only it's starting to deflate a bit, I can feel the hair spray weakening…"

Suddenly realising that his arms were attached to his hands, which were attached to a large portion of glossy black hair, Howard opened his fists and stepped backwards. Quite frankly, his immediate reaction was surprise – surprise that Vince hadn't disembowelled him for daring to grasp his darling hair. Surprise quickly transformed into disbelief, and Howard's hand leapt to his lips unbidden.

"Do you – do you think the next year can be like the picture?" Vince asked, his voice oddly muted as if in timidity.

Howard blinked. He blinked as if flour had crusted in his eyelids. And then he nodded.

* * *

"Oh, look, this'll be genius for the thatching!"

Vince's hand darted across the bench and fell upon a messy pile of dark brown powder. "Chocolate sprinkles!"

He took a pinch and dropped it straight into his waiting mouth, chewing for a minute before screwing up his face in disgust. "Eurgh. It's not sprinkles, Howard. It's that cheap instant coffee you buy whenever it's your turn to go do the weekly shop."

Frowning, Howard reached over, dipped in his pinkie, and tasted. He spat the powder out immediately. "Vince. It's dirt, you berk. Probably left here from when Saboo removed his shoe for the Baileys."

Vince grimaced, shrugged, and then continued wordlessly to Sweet City.

A reluctant grin lifted the edges of Howard's moustache as he turned back to the narrow kitchen bench, staring down at the lumpy muck of dough that had been left behind the night before Christmas. He had tied Vince into his frilly neon apron, checked to make sure that Naboo and Bollo were safely asleep in their respective rooms, and taken out his rolling pin with a tight sensation of triumph.

He was no longer afraid of this insidious mound of dough. Vince had promised to help Howard to convert it into a rather lovely gingerbread house – to be presented to the Shaman Council upon their next meeting in thanks for their attendance at Naboo's Christmas party.

"Howard. Howard. Howard. Howard. Howard. Howard. Hey, Howard. Howard."

"Yes, Vince?" Howard asked with an affectionate smile. Everything was affectionate around Vince now. Every annoying trait could be forgotten – or, at the very least, quickly forgiven. Well, most annoying traits.

"If these are raspberry bootlaces, where do they put the raspberry boots? Only, I think I'd like a pair."

Howard breathed out slowly through his nose, and beamed. And then he thwacked Vince lightly across the back of the head with his rolling pin.

"Oi!"

_

* * *

_

Christmas had ended,

_'Twas the eve of New Year;_

_And the jazz freak and fairy_

_Found their holiday cheer._

**

* * *

**

A/N: Hope you enjoyed that belated festive fic! I had a lot of fun writing this second half - Howard is such a great character, so full of his own complexity. :) And, aw, fluff. That's always nice.

Please REVIEW!

xx Froody


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